


During

by lesbianettes



Series: Merrick Industries [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (It's Keane enjoys having power over and traumatizing people choking), (It's not sexy choking), Blood, Character Death, Choking, Italiano | Italian, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Whump, M/M, Medical Torture, Medical Trauma, Nicky and Joe canonically use it as a comfort language so it's here, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Whump, POV Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Temporary Character Death, Torture, Trauma, Whump, as a treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:08:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26026978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes
Summary: This is one of the things that happened during their "stay" at Merrick industries.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Merrick Industries [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1868779
Comments: 19
Kudos: 265





	During

Joe is dead for most of the beginning. Nicky watches him, his still body, his purple lips, as Kozak methodically cuts pieces of him away. His skin. His chest. She slices his body open and takes a piece of one of his internal organs to put in her little sample trays. She leaves him flayed like that, without bothering to even put his body back together. He’s just lying there, dark black, thick blood running down his torso. He’s so still. 

“You killed him,” Nicky repeats. 

“He’ll come back.”

He shakes his head. “It does not take this long. And besides that, we can die. When it’s our time.”

She glances at him, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she takes her time putting label stickers onto each little container containing Joe’s body. He’s not healing. He’s not alive anymore. There’s an empty space in Nicky’s chest where his heart used to be, just considering the fact that he’s lost him. The reality has yet to truly set in. Somewhere deep down, he knows that Joe is dead, gone, but he hasn’t acknowledged it yet in his fear that it’ll become real. The only way any of this is bearable is if he pretends there’s hope. 

And somehow, that hope keeps him safe. 

Some twenty, thirty minutes later, as Kozak slices away at his lung, watches Nicky choke on his own blood, he hears a scream beside him. Despite the pain, he wrenches his gaze to the left, watches Joe’s muscles, the ones that are still there, strain against the binds holding him to the table. There are tears on his cheeks the same as the blood, his body shaking with the remnants of the drugs in his system and the amount of damage done to him while he was dead.

“Yusuf!” Nicky wishes he could hold him. “Sono qui, Yusuf, guardami. Sono qui. Sono qui! Guardami, prego. Va bene. Sono qui. Cuore mio, Yusuf, respirarti. Sono qui. ”

He can do nothing but watch as Joe cries and screams, his body trying to heal so much pain at once. Nicky’s own vision is dark at the edges while Kozak continues to cut away at him, the blood running down his cheeks and chin, but he refuses to look away from Joe. The way the blood rushes back to his face is a reassurance, and somehow, that which drips onto the floor is as well. He hates to see Joe bleed, but it means that his heart is beating and he’s still alive. 

“Yusuf. Joe. Prego, per favore, look at me. Guardami, look at me, Yusuf.”

Finally, Joe looks at him, with those soulful, soft eyes. Worried. Beautiful. But he’s alive, even covered in blood and so recently hurt, and as long as Kozak’s scalpel is deep inside him, she’s leaving Joe alone. He can handle that, at the very least. Any pain is endurable if it’s to protect Joe. 

“It’s okay,” he says, but it’s more of a wet cough than any real speech. He’s drowning in his own blood. “I’m here.”

“Nicolo-”

He smiles when he dies. It’s going to be okay. At the very least, they both have more time, and no matter what, they will survive it. Together. Nicky tries to say as much, but there’s too much blood and not enough air, so all he can do is cough a bit more, and let the pain give way for the specific emptiness and peace that comes with death. 

When he comes to, there’s something on his face. He instinctively turns away, though he finds the cold, wet sensation follows him. When he opens his eyes, it’s to Keane leaning over him, cleaning him again. There’s a specific violation to this. To being wiped down, touched intimately. He tries to look past him to Joe, but Keane’s body blocks the way, leaving his only option to either stare at the compression shirt or shut his eyes. He chooses the latter. 

“Cuore mio, sei qui?”

His question is met with Keane’s other hand grabbing his throat. He doesn’t choke him this time. But there’s not just the way Keane relishes in the power, it’s personal, and Nicky doesn’t understand why. They didn’t know him before now, didn’t hurt him. In fact, they never met before Keane was having them dragged onto a plane.

“Sono qui, proprio qui. Finirà presto.”

Nicky’s chest aches. He tries to see Joe again, but there’s still the body in his way. “Non ti vedo, tutto bene?”

He doesn’t hear Joe’s answer. Keane squeezes his windpipe, and Nicky doesn’t give him the satisfaction of pain. With control over his body now, he’s able to push the ache down, keep his chest still as long as he can. It’s a waiting game. Keane could kill him right now, if he truly wanted to, and no one would bat an eye. Death is allowed in this game Merrick and his puppets are playing. He can’t help it when his diaphragm begins to spasm. But still, he keeps his eyes on him. Keane finishes cleaning his face and sets the bloody wipe aside, and gives his now free hand a home on Nicky’s face. On his cheek. Like he owns something, like Nicky is owed to him, and he responds by quickly turning his face and biting the fleshy part of his thumb. He’s released, and Nicky draws in breath as Keane stumbles away, clutching his bloody hand. Now he can see Joe.

There’s blood on him, on his face. He has not yet been cleaned. But he’s there, breathing slow and steady, his heart fast on the monitor but still beating. They don’t need words when they have eyes, can check in and pass a million words without needing to move their lips. So long as they’re together. 

“La nostra famiglia,” Joe finally says, “torneranno, Nicolo.”

“I know.”

He watches Keane disinfect and then bandage the bite on his hand, and he imagines reaching out to Joe. Their fingertips brushing, as they did in the early days of their treatises, in a little promise. Pinkie kisses, Andy called them once, as they watched a wall erected between families somewhere in the Americas a while ago. Nicky remembers the pain, but not the when, where or why. He remembers the longing. And it reminded him of himself and Joe, in a way he didn’t like, so they never returned to that place. 

Their moment of peace is interrupted by Keane’s murmurs on a radio, a crackled response, and then his impassive face upon them. No, not impassive. Angry. Cold. This is the sort of man who has killed Nicky and Joe a million times over the centuries for the same transgression. He scoffs and looks away, back to his lover.

“You’ve got two choices.” Keane returns to them, but focuses his attention on Joe. Nicky’s heart rate monitor goes crazy, bringing a smug smile to the bastard’s face. “No more secrets,” he says. He begins to clean Joe’s face of the blood too, a ritual Nicky does not understand. There is no reason, when the rest of them is left dirty. Perhaps it’s part of the dehumanization. “Behave. You speak English or you don’t speak at all, you don’t fight back, and you certainly don’t bite.” He accompanies his final phrase by pulling back from Joe’s face, recognizing the sudden movement this time. They will not catch him twice. 

“What are you going to do?” Joe asks. “Kill us?”

“No, that wouldn’t hurt you.”

He throws away the wipe he cleaned Joe’s face with, and then that of Nicky. They go in the trash, leaving only the sterile environment once more, and returns with a rigid posture that tells them of the life he led before becoming Merrick’s pet killer. 

“If you cannot behave, you’ll be separated.”

Before Nicky even has time to process the words, Joe is yanking at the straps holding him down, trying to get up, get out. “Don’t take him away. I’ll do anything, anything you want, just don’t take him away. Don’t do this. Please.” He doesn’t think he’s heard Joe beg in a very long time, and it’s a specific kind of pain to listen to the love of his life so desperate and broken. 

“Don’t make us.”

Keane leaves, and Kozak takes his place, acting as though nothing happened. She dutifully ignores the tears on Joe’s face, the droplets of Keane’s blood on the floor and in Nicky’s teeth, and the anxious beating of their hearts. None of that matters to her. It doesn’t matter because it’s not relevant to their DNA, nor her needle buried deep in Joe’s chest to take more of him apart. Their private safety net is gone. If Nicky wants to reassure him, he’ll give too much to Kozak that she doesn’t deserve. And as such, he only offers his gaze. So long as he looks, Joe is not in this pain alone. 

“Nicolo,” Joe says desperately.

“I am not leaving, Cuore. I’m right here.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @transnicolo
> 
> [Translations](https://transnicolo.tumblr.com/post/627068179640975360/translations-for-during)


End file.
